Sep 17, 2026 02:50 PM
(This post was last modified: Sep 17, 2026 02:51 PM by C C.)
https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2026-09-16-why...for-months
EXCERPTS: Chimpanzee and bonobo mothers sometimes continue to carry their infants after they have died, a behaviour known as infant corpse carrying (ICC). It is widely documented, and many explanations have been proposed, but few have been quantitatively tested.
The research found that infants that were older when they died, and therefore more closely bonded with their mother, were carried for longer than younger infants and that infants who died from disease were carried for longer than those that died through infanticide.
The study brought together data from 83 published cases of ICC across 15 different sites. The cases document mothers that carried their dead infants for only about 30 minutes, through to periods as long as 126 days. The average ICC duration was about 11 days.
Chimpanzees and bonobos are our closest living relatives. Most experts think our last common ancestor lived between 6 and 8 million years ago, and studying death-related behaviours in these species may provide key insights into the evolutionary origins of human responses to death.
[...] The finding that older infants, who the carrying mother is more closely bonded to, are carried for longer suggests that the strong social bond between chimpanzee mothers and their infants drives ICC. The importance of maternal factors in driving the behaviour is also supported by the finding that mothers carry for longer at sites with longer average intervals between births.
However, of these factors, cause of death was the most consistent predictor. The strong association between disease-related infant deaths and prolonged periods of ICC supports the ‘cause of death’ hypothesis, which proposes that infants who die from disease are carried for longer than those who die from traumatic causes such as infanticide, because their death may be more ambiguous to the mother.
This assumes that chimpanzees can recognise death, a capacity which has yet to be scientifically demonstrated. However, things may not be so simple. In multiple cases, chimpanzee mothers have continued to carry their infants well beyond the point of mummification, a condition that probably provides a clear and persistent signal of death.
[...] Comparing how chimpanzees and bonobos respond to death with our own responses is informative about where human ideas of death came from. If death recognition is not needed to explain the behaviour in chimpanzees and bonobos, some of the complex cognitive frameworks required to recognise death’s finality may have emerged in the hominin lineage after our last common ancestor... (MORE - missing details)
EXCERPTS: Chimpanzee and bonobo mothers sometimes continue to carry their infants after they have died, a behaviour known as infant corpse carrying (ICC). It is widely documented, and many explanations have been proposed, but few have been quantitatively tested.
The research found that infants that were older when they died, and therefore more closely bonded with their mother, were carried for longer than younger infants and that infants who died from disease were carried for longer than those that died through infanticide.
The study brought together data from 83 published cases of ICC across 15 different sites. The cases document mothers that carried their dead infants for only about 30 minutes, through to periods as long as 126 days. The average ICC duration was about 11 days.
Chimpanzees and bonobos are our closest living relatives. Most experts think our last common ancestor lived between 6 and 8 million years ago, and studying death-related behaviours in these species may provide key insights into the evolutionary origins of human responses to death.
[...] The finding that older infants, who the carrying mother is more closely bonded to, are carried for longer suggests that the strong social bond between chimpanzee mothers and their infants drives ICC. The importance of maternal factors in driving the behaviour is also supported by the finding that mothers carry for longer at sites with longer average intervals between births.
However, of these factors, cause of death was the most consistent predictor. The strong association between disease-related infant deaths and prolonged periods of ICC supports the ‘cause of death’ hypothesis, which proposes that infants who die from disease are carried for longer than those who die from traumatic causes such as infanticide, because their death may be more ambiguous to the mother.
This assumes that chimpanzees can recognise death, a capacity which has yet to be scientifically demonstrated. However, things may not be so simple. In multiple cases, chimpanzee mothers have continued to carry their infants well beyond the point of mummification, a condition that probably provides a clear and persistent signal of death.
[...] Comparing how chimpanzees and bonobos respond to death with our own responses is informative about where human ideas of death came from. If death recognition is not needed to explain the behaviour in chimpanzees and bonobos, some of the complex cognitive frameworks required to recognise death’s finality may have emerged in the hominin lineage after our last common ancestor... (MORE - missing details)